SOURCE: Edgecombe, Rodney Stenning. “The Mind-Reader, New Poems (1976).” In A Reader's Guide to the Poetry of Richard Wilbur, pp. 122-38. Tuscaloosa Alabama, United States: The University of Alabama Press, 1995.

Wilbur's 1976 volume is, like its predecessor, divided into sections, one of which is occupied solely by the eponymous poem. As before, I shall start with this, the dominant piece. Because it also deals with the control and shaping of consciousness, “The Mind-Reader” (NCP, p. 106) bears some resemblance to “Walking to Sleep,” except that here it is not the poet who guides the reader half-hypnotically into ways of seeing, but a clairvoyant who tries to articulate the nature of his...